De Groot Coffee Co. does real good coffee – it’s as simple as that.
Trevor De Groot and Bernadette Stack set up Espresso Royale, a little organic coffee house with a red verandah on Magill Road in 2008. For over a decade they have been making coffee together under the De Groot Coffee Co. brand, and have been roasting and serving coffee down by the sea at Port Elliot for since 2014.
Coffee has been a long-term infatuation for the couple. Before Espresso Royale, Bernadette sold coffee out of a little van dubbed the Cappuccino Queen in Adelaide. She launched the business in 1998, “back in the days when froth had to be big,” and ran it right up until establishing Espresso Royale.
Coffee and the love of what it does to people and how it can create a community is what motivates Trevor and Bernadette and is a big part of why the pair decided to relocate to the small coastal town of Port Elliot. A chance encounter at the Victor Harbor farmers’ market introduced Trevor and Bernadette to their now landlord and the couple fell in love with the village of warehouses in the back blocks of Port Elliot.
A keen bodyboarder, Trevor regularly frequented Knight’s Beach (pictured on the homepage) and both he and Bernadette could see the redeeming and relaxing effect of a sea-change on their hectic owner-operator existence. Running a small business is a lifestyle choice in itself, but De Groot Coffee Co. has a triple bottom-line approach to running their company. KPIs aren’t part of the lingo here and growth has always resulted from the quality of the product and the relationships they form with the multiple cafés who serve their beans and their own customers who come into the coffee cellar door.
Trevor and Bernadette are proud of the fact they have much more in common with their customers than just coffee and they’re stoked to sponsor the local bodyboarding club and support the many fundraising events run by local schools, sports & community groups.
Never focused on what’s trending, De Groot Coffee Co. cares most about the bean, the brew and you. Roasting and serving single-origin only, this coffee company takes a considered approach without being overly constrained or concerned with what’s happening in specialty coffee around the world. Trevor is constantly speaking to his coffee brokers and, after more than a decade working together, it’s safe to say they understand what’s important to De Groot Coffee Co and their community.
De Groot Coffee Co isn’t just a coffee company it’s a life’s work and if Trev and Bern are going to spend their working lives roasting, brewing and delivering coffee, then you can be sure they’ll do it well and do it better all the time.
De Groot Coffee Co. does real good coffee – it’s as simple as that.